Plenty of you will be following developments and rumors about the Samsung Galaxy S4 (Galaxy S IV), Samsung’s next flagship release and we’ve already heard plenty of speculation and leaks giving us some idea of what to expect from this much-anticipated smartphone. We’ve already heard possibilities of a new Exynos 5 Octa processor, 4.99-inch full HD display, wireless charging and much more and now it seems that floating touch technology could be in evidence, something we’d not heard before but that makes us very curious.

This type of technology was previously used on a phone called the Sony Xperia sola, whereby merely hovering your finger above the display could make selections rather than actually touching the screen. Now it seems that touchless gestures could be coming to screen navigation on the Samsung Galaxy S4 in a rather more beefed-up way and that’s certainly a rather intriguing prospect.

Korea’s DDaily (Google Translation) reports that Atmel’s maXTouch S Controllers will be used by Samsung for mixed signal input enabling an interface with gesture-based navigation. Although this sounds innovative and ingenious we think it could take some getting used to and are not sure that everybody would want to see this. However if the reports are accurate, Samsung certainly seems to think this would be a popular move as the company would not risk alienating customers from their next Galaxy S flagship. To give you some idea of how this could work we’ve embedded a video below of floating touch technology on the Sony Xperia sola.

We have to say that for now we should take this with a proverbial pinch of salt as nothing has been confirmed and this seems one of the more fanciful suggestions we’ve heard for the Galaxy S4. More likely leaks concern the specs we mentioned at the top of this story along with improvements such as a 13-megapixel rear camera and the possibility that the Galaxy S4 could be running the next major Android upgrade, 5.0 Key Lime Pie.

We’re really interested to hear what you think about this though. Are you curious about this concept and is floating touch technology something you’d like to see featured on the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S4? What other additions would you like to see? Let us know with your comments.